WLWT investigates Cincinnati city salaries

Is the city payroll too top-heavy?

In June, hundreds of Cincinnati police and firefighters will receive layoff notices. Cincinnati's city manager Milton Dohoney said he has no other option. "If there was another way to deal with it, I would certainly choose it."

Other city leaders disagree. Councilmember P.G. Sittenfeld told us, "When I lay out the map, lay out the numbers, I don't think we need to be gutting our safety forces."

And Fraternal Order of Police President Kathy Harrell said, "I know the money is there."

So WLWT News 5 Amy Wagner focused a months-long investigation on Cincinnati's $338 million payroll budget for 2012. That is about 25 percent of the city's total budget.

Wagner began by examining the top 25 earners on that list. Each makes more than $150,000. Combined, their salaries total $4.6 million. That equals the salaries of 73 police officers.

That total prompted Sittenfeld to tell us, "When we do need to do cuts, let's start with the supervisors, the middle management where things are a little bit bloated where some of those highest salaries are. Let's not start with a cop on the beat, a firefighter being dispatched to save lives."

Nearly 150 police officers could lose their jobs this spring to balance the city's multimillion dollar budget deficit. One of them told us these won't be officers with little experience. Rather, Officer Kyle Strunk told us, these cuts will have a deep impact on the readiness of the police force. "These aren't cops that have been on for six months. We know the streets. We know our jobs well. We know the people," Strunk said.

In the fire department, 80 firefighters are slated to be cut along with a 40-person recruit class.

"There is a hierarchy of needs and police and fire should be the last thing to go and I'm pretty convinced we don't need to go there," Sittenfeld said.

Our investigation also examined the payroll for the manager's office. In Dohoney's department eight employees make a combined $1.2 million. That's the equivalent of 25 firefighter jobs. Dohoney himself commands the highest pay in the city, close to $300,000. City Council approved a raise for Dohoney last year. His paycheck equals that of more than six firefighters.

Sittenfeld is one of the council members who voted against Dohoney's raise. "Part of the reason why I voted against what felt like a pretty lavish raise had less to do with him and more to do with the broader economic circumstance. We are very short of money."

When we asked Dohoney about his pay he told us, "It's arguably an issue for people and I do understand that, but it's a salary my bosses have chosen to give me." He told us that his salary is not out of line with other managers. "When you look around the country at people who do this for a living, there are plenty of city managers who make a lot more than I make."

But after WLWT News 5's Amy Wagner examined more than a dozen cities of comparable size, our research put Dohoney's paycheck at the top of the list for city managers.

"We are not giving our front-line workers raises. Why would we give it to management? Why would we give it to people at the top?" Sittenfeld asked.

Harrell raised similar concerns from the rank and file officers she represents. "He gets the salary he gets and it's like a slap in the face to city employees who have had to give back days, take furlough days."

Now those officers and firefighters face layoffs. Many told us that when they consider the paychecks at the top, it's a tough pill to swallow.

"We just want to protect and serve and do it with support," said Strunk.